Let my people go!

The night of the Passover Seder, the streets of Israel's cities were empty and deserted, and from the windows could be heard the singing of ancient hymns and passages from well-accustomed texts.

Slaves we were, now we are free. Slaves we were, now we are free!  With hard labor, with mortar and with bricks, and with all manner of service in the field the Egyptians embittered our fathers'  lives. We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and our God took us out from there with a strong hand and with an outstretched arm. And if He had not taken our fathers out of Egypt, then we, our children and our children's children would still be enslaved to Pharaoh in Egypt. Not only our fathers did He redeem from Egypt, but also us did He redeem with them. Slaves we were, now we are free. Slaves we were, now we are free!

Already for forty-six year all these things have been read out and sung and chanted also by settlers in the Occupied Territories. Sitting down at armed enclaves surrounded by wire fences and walls and guarded by the soldiers of a mighty army, they told at length of slaves going out of bondage and into liberty. Did the echo of the singing reach the villages nearby whose land was confiscated and their springs clogged and their water taken away and their sons held behind bars and their roads blocked by military checkpoints?

In the city of Hebron Palestinians held a protest march, their faces covered with masks of Martin Luther King, the Black leader who was deeply inspired by the story of the Exodus. When the Palestinian disciples of Martin Luther King dared s to get closer to the fences of the settler enclave at the heart of Hebron, soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces attacked them and beat them up, sprinkling them with tear gas and dragging them into custody, so as to ensure they would not interfere with the settlers’ Passover festivities.

What is it which makes this Passover different from the forty five which preceded it, the forty five Passovers celebrated under an ongoing occupation and burgeoning settlement enterprise? This year, three days before Passover, we got a visit from Barack Hussein Obama. The Black man who managed to do what was long considered impossible and got elected President of the United States of America – elected, not just once but twice. The Black man who tried to remind us of the meaning of the holiday we are celebrating.

(...) I come to Israel on the eve of a sacred holiday – the celebration of Passover. And that is where I would like to begin today. Just a few days from now, Jews here in Israel and around the world will sit with family and friends at the Seder table, and celebrate with songs, wine and symbolic foods. After enjoying Seders with family and friends in Chicago and on the campaign trail, I’m proud to have brought this tradition into the White House. I did so because I wanted my daughters to experience the Haggadah, and the story at the center of Passover that makes this time of year so powerful.

It is a story of centuries of slavery, and years of wandering in the desert; a story of perseverance amidst persecution, and faith in God and the Torah. It is a story about finding freedom in your own land. For the Jewish people, this story is central to who you have become. But it is also a story that holds within it the universal human experience, with all of its suffering and salvation. It is a part of the three great religions – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam – that trace their origins to Abraham, and see Jerusalem as sacred. And it is a story that has inspired communities around the globe, including me and my fellow Americans.

To African-Americans, the story of the Exodus told a powerful tale about emerging from the grip of bondage to reach for liberty and human dignity – a tale that was carried from slavery through the civil rights movement. For generations, this promise helped people weather poverty and persecution, while holding on to the hope that a better day was on the horizon. For me personally, growing up in far-flung parts of the world and without firm roots, it spoke to a yearning within every human being for a home.

 As Dr. Martin Luther King said on the day before he was killed – “I may not get there with you. But I want you to know that… we, as a people, will get to the promised land.”

For the Jewish people, the journey to the promise of the State of Israel wound through countless generations. It involved centuries of suffering and exile, prejudice, pogroms and even genocide. Through it all, the Jewish people sustained their unique identity and traditions, as well as a longing to return home. And while Jews achieved extraordinary success in many parts of the world, the dream of true freedom finally found its full expression in the Zionist idea – to be a free people in your homeland.”

“Peace is necessary. Indeed, it is the only path to true security. You can be the generation that permanently secures the Zionist dream, or you can face a growing challenge to its future. Given the demographics west of the Jordan River, the only way for Israel to endure and thrive as a Jewish and democratic state is through the realization of an independent and viable Palestine. Given the frustration in the international community, Israel must reverse an undertow of isolation. And given the march of technology, the only way to truly protect the Israeli people is through the absence of war – because no wall is high enough, and no Iron Dome is strong enough, to stop every enemy from inflicting harm.

This truth is more pronounced given the changes sweeping the Arab World. Peace must be made among peoples, not just governments. No one step can change overnight what lies in the hearts and minds of millions. But progress with the Palestinians is a powerful way to begin. The Palestinian people’s right to self-determination and justice must also be recognized. Put yourself in their shoes – look at the world through their eyes. It is not fair that a Palestinian child cannot grow up in a state of her own, and lives with the presence of a foreign army that controls the movements of her parents every single day. It is not just when settler violence against Palestinians goes unpunished. It is not right to prevent Palestinians from farming their lands; to restrict a student’s ability to move around the West Bank; or to displace Palestinian families from their home. Neither occupation nor expulsion is the answer. Just as Israelis built a state in their homeland, Palestinians have a right to be a free people in their own land."

Thus spoke Moses Obama to the ears of Israel, the State of Israel which has long since become a collective Pharaoh while continuing to speak at length of the Exodus from Egypt. And the hundreds of young Israelis who heard the speech responded with a prolonged standing ovation.

So, maybe this time the story will be a bit different. Maybe this time  Pharaoh's heart would not be hardened. Maybe the Palestinians would go from bondage to liberty and from darkness into light and will be a free people in their own land, even without our waiting for ten plagues to come upon us.

Perhaps the most important thing we heard from Obama was: " Today, I want to tell you – particularly the young people – that so long as there is a United States of America, Ah-tem lo lah-vahd [you are not alone]. A promise very pleasing to the Israeli ear, but which contains - to those who can listen - also a warning and an alert. As long as the United States of America is there, we're not alone. But nowadays it is no longer science fiction to speak of the decline of America and reflect on the possibility that once upon a time the United States would no longer be the dominant power in the world. The day when the condition of the American Empire would approximate that of the British Empire and that even if it wanted to, America would not be able to offer much help to Israel. And should the Israeli Pharaoh continue to harden his heart until that moment, we might have to refer also to the  continuation of the story. Also to a mighty wave of water descending upon horse and rider.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/03/21/full-video-and-transcript-of-obama-s-speech-in-israel.html

A government with a civil agenda

After all the grueling and long-lasting negotiations it seems that we have a new government. A government with a civil agenda, focusing on domestic matters – particularly on hitting out at the ultra-Orthodox Haredi community.

And what about the occupation? The Palestinians are supposed to wait for another government.  

 And if they don’t wait?

On Tuesday morning the newspaper headlines had proclaimed the mighty achievement  of Yair Lapid, who forced Netanyahu to agree that the next government will have only 21 ministers, rather than the 30 in the outgoing cabinet. Just at the time when these headlines appeared on the newsstands throughout the State of Israel, a security guard came out of the "Abigail" settler outpost in the South Hebron Hills - and attacked the shepherd Na'al Abu Aram from Susya village. The security guard -  whose name we do not know - beat, punched, kicked and shoved the shepherd, then ran after the flock of sheep, to scare them and scatter them in all directions. Then the security guard went back to the outpost. Who knows, maybe he sat there drinking coffee and keeping track of the negotiations to form a new government. By the way, the Avigail outpost is considered illegal, also under  Israeli law. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, before he fell into a coma, promised to dismantle it.  Nobody took care to keep that promise. Nor is the new government, to be  established by Lapid and Bennett and Netanyahu likely to do it.

On the evening of that same day, Tuesday night , a last minute crisis developed in the negotiations. Conflict got to a very pitch over the issue of who would get the Education portfolio. Indeed, who is better fitted to stand in the vanguard of educating the children of Israel? Should it be Gideon Saar, who sent  school kids on educational tours of Hebron, so as to make them aware that this is the Land of Our Fathers and therefore ours forever? Or is it better to entrust the job to Rabbi Shai Piron who ten years ago expressed his considered Halachic opinion that Jews should not rent apartments to Arabs, but who since changed his mind completely and became a moderate, liberal and staunchly anti-racist rabbi.  At this same time when this great crisis developed in the government coalition talks, soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces - young men who only a few years ago graduated from the Israeli education system – broke into the Fawwar Refugee Camp near Hebron. The soldiers clashed with camp youths and opened fire and shot and killed Mahmoud Al-Titi and wounded several of his fellows. Mahmoud Al-Titi had been twenty-two years old. Two of the years of his life he had spent behind bars in the Israeli occupation’s prisons, and after being released he had studied Media and Journalism at the Polytechnic Institute in Arroub. He  will not get to hear the speech of President Barack Obama who is due to arrive here next week, and will never form an opinion on whether or not Obama's visit would give Palestinians any measure of hope of  breaking free of the Israeli occupation. But probably Al-Titi, like many young Palestinians, did not have any shred of hope from this visit. Certainly not with the new government about to be formed in Israel.
  
Wednesday morning the media was filled with reports of the escalating coaltion talks crisis and the severe threats hurled and ultimatums set by the leaders of the various parties to each other. It was exactly at that same time that an army detachment reached the tiny  and faraway  village of Maghayer el Abeed in the South Hebron Hills, and ordered the villagers to themselves demolish at once the solar power system in their village, erected  by the Comet – ME foundation. Comet-ME is an Israeli-Palestinian non-profit organization dedicated to sustainable rural electrification - i.e. "providing renewable energy services to off-grid Palestinian communities using sustainable methods" – an aim which the military government considers utterly illegal. As far as the Israeli military government is concerned, the entire village of Maghayer el Abeed should not be there. Like several other small villagers nearby it should be destroyed and disappear, making place for “Fire Zone 918” which is needed as training area of ​​the Israel Defense Forces as well as for the expansion of several settlements in this area. Most of these settlers had voted in the recent elections for Naftali Bennett who pledged that “something new is beginning". But his talking about “new things” certainly did not refer to providing a solar power system to a Palestinian village not linked to the extensive power grid serving the flourishing and expanding settlements all around.

In the afternoon of the same day, just at the time when Naftali Bennett embarked on the task of mediation to end the crisis in the government coalition talks, there was held in the Fawwar Refugee Camp the funeral of Mahmoud Al-Titi. Almost all residents of the camp attended, and waved Palestinian flags and chanted angry slogans. The Israeli TV crew covering the funeral did not forget
to remind viewers at home that the young people they were seeing had been incited and that was why they were crying out such nasty things. Meanwhile, Naftali Bennett succeeded in his mission, and a compromise was agreed upon  whereby Lapid's party will win the Ministry of Education for Rabbi Piron and while Sa’ar of Netanyahu's party will get the Ministry of Interior. And for his own Bennett got a handsome mediator’s fee in the form of the Chairmanship of the key Knesset Finance Committee - which is considered as the main faucet  through which state funds flow, and Bennett will of course divert a considerable part of them to his settler constituents. Not that this would really be something new; previous governments have already pumped quite a lot of money to settlements and gave many benefits to Israeli citizens who went to live in them.

Among other things, it was the benefit granted by previous governments which convinced a woman called Adva Biton to move to a settlement called Yakir and raise her children there and win the many benefits offered by the government.  On Thursday afternoon, when formation of the next government of Israel was assured, only minor details left to hammer out, Adva Biton went out on a routine trip with her daughters on the Trans-Samaria Highway, a modern multi-lane throughway built for the benefit of settlers. Her car was in a long string of cars which passed near the village of Kifl Haris, where young villagers hurled stones at settler cars traveling on the road which had been erected on their village lands. A stone struck the truck which was before her car. The truck driver was not hurt, but he abruptly slowed down, and Adva Biton’s car collided with the truck, and her little daughter was injured and taken to hospital in a severe condition. And because it was an Israeli girl the case made the headlines in the Israeli press. The other incident which happened at exactly the same time, when soldiers opened fire for the second time in two days, seriously injuring a Palestinian boy, was set aside. Regardless of all that, the negotiations for formation of the new government progressed successfully and overcame the last minor sticking points.

And just when the party leaders heaved a sigh of relief and prepared to sign the finally completed coalition agreements, the Head of IDF Military Intelligence, Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, rose to speak at the Herzliya Conference and talked of the current situation on the West Bank. As he remarked, "we can all see the bubbling and hubbub on the Palestinian streets in recent months".  He then added that "The economic situation is the primary motive of this phenomenon, along with the issue of prisoners which is fueling discontent.  The settlers’ 'price tag' [retaliatory raids on Palestinian villages] and the stagnation in the political and diplomatic process contribute to the boiling and ferment”. However, the General reassured his listeners that this ferment on the Palestinian streets is of "a limited magnitude" and certainly does not constitute  a Third Intifada. So there is no real reason to worry.

Israel gets a new government, just as the Catholic Church gets a new Pope. Upon his entry into his new job, the new Pope chose a new name, a name  indicating his aspirations and intentions. He chose Francis, the first Pope to ever use that name.

Francis of Assisi was one of the important Saints in the history of the Catholic Church, and well-known also outside the church. Among the things told of him was his unique personal peace initiative. At the very midst of the Crusades, when Christians and Muslims communicated with each other mainly by the sword, St. Francis of Assisi went  alone, unarmed, to meet the Muslim King of Egypt, and was very honorably received .

No reason to worry. This is a source of inspiration for the new Pope in Rome, not for the new government in Jerusalem.

A carnival parade, a funeral and the revolving door of media interest.

This Sunday there were huge crowds of people in the street near my home in the city of Holon. Many times more than on any other day of the year. Thousands and tens of thousands poured in from all neighborhoods in the city and from far and wide, to see the famous Holon Adloyada . There were very many cheerful children in colorful costumes, holding the hands of their parents or riding on shoulders or running around playfully. And also grown ups took  care to have a costume – at least to the extent of having on their head a plastic Viking helmet or a pointed Chinese hat. The crowd was terribly dense when everybody scrambled to get places from which the carnival parade could be seen, the giant puppets of  Pinocchio and Geppetto and the elephants and dinosaurs and the hundreds of dancing school girls who had trained over months for this day. Newspaper headlines told of the rising tensions on the West Bank and the army’s high alert. But who  reads papers during the Adloyada?

This Monday there were huge crowds of people in the streets of Sa’ir village near Hebron.  Many times more than on any other day of the year. Thousands and tens of thousands poured in from all over the West Bank to the funeral of Arafat Jaradat, the gas station attendant who was suspected of stone-throwing  and who died in questionable circumstances after five days in Israeli detention. Very many angry young people in the checkered national kafiya headdress, who had already undergone short or long terms in detention centers and prisons of the Israeli occupation. They knew it could just as well have been any one of them. With them were older Palestinians who remembered the First Intifada and some of the elderly, who still carry the traumatic memories of the 1948 Nakba. They marched behind the coffin and chanted loudly and debated with each other if the time has already come to launch a full-scale Intifada and whether to go immediately to confront the Israeli soldiers stationed at the entrance to the village.

For a few days the Israeli media discovered the Palestinians. The Palestinian prisoners whose hunger strike had already gone on for many months without the citizens of Israel knowing or caring suddenly caught the top headlines. Also the protest vigil at the gates of Tel Aviv University got media attention which its organizers had given up expecting. Reporters fanned out across the West Bank to provide real-time coverage from the confrontations developing at all the hot spots. Experts discussed and debated endlessly on whether the Third Intifada had indeed arrived.

"The Goal: Quiet' announced a banner headline on the front page of the mass- circulation Yediot large, and various commentators gave their opinions and evaluations on how such quiet is to be achieved – some counseling dialogue with the Palestinians while others called  for overwhelming use of brute force. And after three days, headlines reported "security experts" as stating their opinion  that "the riots are fading out" and that evidently it was not yet the Third Intifada. And with an audible sigh of relief, the media rushed to push the Palestinians back to the godforsaken back pages and return their attention  to the usual Israeli routine of corruption scandals and political party intrigues and juicy judicial cases.

Today Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is mainly concerned with the desperate attempts to form a new governing coalition. He remains faced with the solid political alliance between Naftali Bennett, former head of the settlers’ Judea and Samaria Council and Yair Lapid who declares his strong desire to talk peace with the Palestinians - but who are united in relegating this to the background and giving complete precedence to the issue  of taking Haredi Ultra-Orthodox youths into the army, or at least throwing their representatives out of the government. And, the papers are filled to the brim with wild speculations of commentators how Netanyahu should square the circle.

Also today, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad left his office to join the young demonstrators in Bil'in, whose  weekly protest this week reached Hollywood ( “5 broken cameras”).  The Palestinian PM shared in the most common experience for young Palestinians nowadays, inhaling tear gas. Most citizens of Israel did not get to hear this piece of news. The editors just did not regard it as  important or worthy of publication. For the time being, there is no Third Intifada, so who cares what Palestinians are doing?

Rachel’s tears

One of the most touching stories in the Bible is the death of Rachel, Jacob's beloved wife, while giving birth to their youngest son Benjamin, and her burial on the side of the road where she died. At the time when the story was composed and written down,  and for a very long time afterwards, maternal mortality was an ever present danger hovering over the heads of women and married couples.

Did such a woman ever live in reality? And if she did, did she really die and get  buried at that point north of the city of Bethlehem (now well within the city)?  Jews - as well Christians and Muslims - have gone on pilgrimage there for at least thousand and five hundred year. Whatever the reality, so many years of tradition have a power of their own. The figure of an ideal mother, full of boundless compassion and understanding and having great influence in Heaven, sitting there inside the grave and listening carefully to all suppliants.
"Bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children; she refuseth to be comforted for her children” (Jeremiah 31, 14) is one of the Biblical verses very central to the Jewish religion.

For centuries the structure of Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem was chosen to appear on the postage stamps of Mandatory Palestine. That  small and modest structure no longer exists. In 1995, at the time of Oslo, the Ultra-Orthodox rabbis  cried out that "Mother Rachel" must be retained under the control of the State of Israel, and Prime Minister Rabin gave in to that pressure. The outcome was to cut off the tomb from the city of Bethlehem, make it an armed enclave under Israeli control, and build around it huge concrete walls, a veritable  fortification at the heart of the Palestinian city. Ever since, it is the focus of conflicts and incidents, with Palestinian protesters marching toward the walls and Israeli soldiers shooting tear gas and sometimes live ammunition as well, while behind the soldiers Jewish pilgrims arrive in armored vehicles. Childless Muslim women, who traditionally also used to come there and ask for Rachel's help, must now turn elsewhere for help.

Two weeks ago, colorful booklets have been distributed throughout  the country, bearing the solemn news that "On Purim Day, a special Salvation Tikkun will take place at  Rachel's Tomb. The greatest Kabbalists and Righteous Sages will gather there, right next to Mother Rachel!” The booklet made an offer which cannot be refused - for a suitable financial contribution,  the Kabbalists and Righteous Sages would take care to drop in Mother Rachel’s ears also the name of the donor: "This day is your day, the day of the Purim Salvation Tikkun at Rachel's Tomb – make the most of it.  Don’t miss this date’ let your name come before Mother Rachel! What do you wish for? Health? Contentment? Happiness? Success? A good livelihood? Sons? Anything you can want, anything you can want!!! "(Three exclamation marks in the original).

And so it was. On Monday this week the Kabbalists and Righteous Sages came under military protecttion to the Tomb, and energetically embarked on the Salvation Tikkun. A few meters away, across the thick and high concrete walls,  hundreds of young Palestinians were holding a stormy demonstration. The soldiers who were stationed at the top of the wall, so as to facilitate the Kabbalists and Righteous Sages in holding their ritual, did not content themselves with the intense firing of tear gas.

A sniper stationed at the pillbox position just in front of Rachel’ Tomb asked  and got permission to use live ammunition and shoot metal bullets of 0.22-inch diameter, nicknamed “Two-Two Bullets”. Even though years ago, after several fatal cases, the military authorities forbade the use of such bullets in the dispersal of demonstrations.

The sniper raised his rifle and fired. Odai Sarhan, a 12 year old boy from Aida Refugee camp in Bethlehem, was hit by a bullet directly to the head and fell down. For some time the soldiers prevented first aid teams from approaching. When they finally reached him, they feared that it was too late. Thank God, medical teams at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem managed to stabilize his condition. Maybe Rachel was crying for him, too...

The nutcracker dilemma

Part 1 - by Beate Zilversmidt

The elections were after all an earthquake. The blocs were broken up.

The Israeli multi-party system had more and more developed into a de-facto bi-partisan situation, with fixed right of center and left of center blocs. The ultra-orthodox (Haredi) religious parties were before 2000 still sometimes changing course, thereby acquiring much power as king-makers. But they seemed to have found their destination on the right. New parties trying to become recognized as "center parties" got crushed, or ended up being labeled "left wing". Kadima, the party created by Sharon just before he got the stroke from which he didn't recover was meant to be a center party. The remnant of it was considered in the 2013 elections as belonging to the left bloc.

But the blocs are no more. The anti-Haredi bond between the extreme right "Bayit Yehudi" and the center-left "Yesh Atid" is overriding other loyalties. What the nationalist-religious and the secularists - both led by new political stars - have in common is their dislike of the Haredi privileges. For the secular Yair Lapid it would be enough when Haredim will  be conscripted to the army. For Naftali Bennett there is one more target: to riggle the chief rabbinate out of Haredi hands. (If Bennett and Lapid would both enter the government and  succeed to break the Haredi privileges, they would soon stop being allies as they hold totally different ideas about  the elephant in the room, Israeli-Palestinian relations.)

Without the fixed blocs and though his party lost big, Netanyahu seemed still the only one who could be asked to form a government coalition. Now he is doing everything to avoid being crushed in the nutcracker - under coordinated pressure from the two novices, from left and right simultaneously. Therefore he needs everybody else's support.

From the point of arithmetic it should not be so difficult with Lapid and Bennett together holding not more than 31 seats of the Knesset's 120. But Netanyahu and his Likud are encountering some other hurdles. Though originally a "peoples party" the Likud became under Netanyahu  identified with hard-line economic liberalism. And exactly now the Labor Party (15 seats), under Shelly Yechimovitz, is taking its name seriously and demands a totally opposite economic policy.

Still, Netanyahu could probably gather together 57 out of the 120, with Tzippy Livni already in, and for whose 6 seats he was willing to emphasize the importance of the two-state solution;  Kadima (only 2 seats but still toughly negotiating); and the Haredim (two parties, together 18 seats) so to say "in Netanyahu's pocket". Added to that the 31 of the  Likud-Beyteynu alliance Netanyahu would still not have a majority in the Knesset, but it doesn't seem likely that anybody else could garner more without new elections being held.

If Israel would be a different place altogether there would be left a way for Netanyahu to make the 57 into 61, without any problem of having to compromise on such touchy matters as religious privileges and economic course. In an Israel different from the really existing one it would at least be considerable to include also Israel's Muslims. The Ra'am-Ta'al party (4 seats) would not create any problems on the issues Netanyahu singled out as crucial.

But, including an Arab party, appointing an Arab minister, and thus out of the ruins creating some new hope for Israel, of course Netanyahu would never do such a thing, not even out of despair.


The nutcracker dilemma

Part 2 - by Adam Keller


Uri Elitzur, who had been secretary general of settlers’ Judea and Samaria Council and Netanyahu’s chef de bureau and later became an influential columnist of the Israeli right-wing, is very enthusiastic about the political alliance forged between Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett. He writes: "There is something exciting that two people completely new to politics, both in their forties, are at the head of two big parties. Aside from their age and the enthusiasm of something new starting, there are other significant things that are common to both of the parties behind Lapid and Bennett. For example, an awareness that the old debate between Left and Right on the future of the Territories is not necessarily the most important of issues. A new generation has arisen, which is tired of this division and which sees a lot of important and urgent matters on which Left and Right can work together."

Apparently, this new generation considers the issue of forcing upon Haredi youths recruitment to military service as far more important and urgent than    the question of what duties and tasks the State of Israel imposes on its army.  And it is a fact that the opinion polls which made ​​headlines in the weekend papers predict great success for Lapid and Bennet and their respective parties, were repeat elections held in the near future.

Still, over there - behind the fences and walls, very close geographically but worlds away from the hearts and minds of the majority of Israelis – are  living millions of people who are far from tired of the debate whether Israeli occupation continues or ends. They care little if it is devout Haredim or irreverant  Atheists who don the IDF uniform and go out to harass drivers at checkpoints on Palestinian highways, guard the ever expanding settlements built on Palestinian land and shoot tear gas at protesters and demonstrators.

This week, an increasing wave of demonstrations and protests throughout the Palestinian territories, culminating on Friday at the East  Jerusalem’s Temple Mount  mosques, at long last forced the Israeli printed and electronic media to pay some attention to what is going on among Palestinian prisoners held in Israel’s prisons. Already soon after last year’s prisoner exchange, the security services found various pretexts to start re-arresting an increasing number of the Palestinians released in exchange for Israeli soldier  Gilad Shalit. Lacking other recourse, four of these re-arrested prisoners turned to a prolonged hunger strike endangering their lives – which makes them into heroes in the eyes of Palestinians regardless of political affiliation. 

On Thursday, Samer Al-Issawy, who had gone  without solid food for more than 200 days, appeared in court in a wheelchair. He was charged with having “violated the terms of his parole by leaving the boundaries of Jerusalem” -  having gone to a garage at a Jerusalem suburb which has not been annexed to Israel and is legally part of the West Bank. For this he was condemned to eight months imprisonment, the term deemed to have started with his arrest on July 7, 2012.

This would set him free in a few weeks from now - but that may not be the end of the matter. Through hastily enacted regulations, any breach of the law by a Palestinian released in the Shalit Exchange could lead to re-imposition of the original, years-long term. In the case of Issawi, who is determined to continue his hunger strike until he is free, this would be tantamount to a death sentence.

In several previous cases, Israeli authorities showed themselves wise and flexible enough to set hunger striking prisoners before any of them could die in prison. Hopefully, they would act as wisely this time, too. Which in itself is far from enough to avert outbreak of the often predicted and talked about Third Intifada.

Palestinians feel that the world has forgotten them and abandoned them to open-ended Israeli occupation and the steady encroachment of Israeli settlements, and are far from being impressed by Netanyahu reiterating his verbal commitment to the two-state solution and getting the famous Tzipi Livni to represent him in negotiations, if and when they are resumed. Lacking a real reason for hope, any chance spark could light the dry tinder. Exactly twenty five years ago, a pure accident – an Israeli driver hitting Palestinian pedestrians – was enough to set alight the fires of the First Intifada. Would President  Obama, in his visit scheduled for next month, provide a measure of real hope – or will still another disappointment be added to the combustible mixture?

Meanwhile, there is at least one young Israeli who is not “tired of the old debate between Left and Right on the future of the Territories”.  Nathan Blanc, a 19-year old Israeli from Haifa, is already for many months going in and out of prison due to a particularly firm position taken in this old debate.

Blanc’s cycle has so far repeated itself six times. He comes to the Induction Center, is ordered to join the army,  says "I will not serve in an army of occupation" and gets sent to another month at Military Prison 6. Gets out of the prison - and straight again to the Induction Center, refuses again and goes  back through the revolving door to prison. So it has gone on, and without an end in sight. The army has patience, the military authorities strongly insist that this young man must surrender and serve. But Nathan Blanc also has patience and perseverance, and he certainly does not intend to capitulate. Another month in prison and yet another, and the saga continues.


This morning, hundreds of activists of the Yesh Gvul Movement climbed on the mountain opposite Military Prison 6, to celebrate the Purim holiday together with with Nathan Blanc and his fellow prisoners. Artists came voluntarily to perform, and strong loudspeakers carried the sound of singing into the  prison courtyard. And meanwhile, the name of Nathan Blanc is becoming increasingly known internationally. In Switzerland a poster was published with his photo, the student newspaper at Emory University in the United States published an article praising him as a hero, When I was a month ago in at Hiroshima in Japan, I found that there, too, peace activists have already heard of Nathan Blanc.

Blanc has already rejected the option of getting psychiatric discharge.
If more months of imprisonment accumulate, what is waiting him is a court martial where he could be condemned to years in the harsh military prison conditions.  Then, also he may enter the headlines and the news broadcasts of the mainstream media around the world – another victim of the occupation.

From prisoner X to Lord Montagu

No court issued a gag order on the detention of Samer Al Issawi. The information was freely available, and anyone who wanted to could have published all the facts: Samer al-Issawi, a resident of Isawiya in East Jerusalem, was placed last July in Administrative Detention without trial and imprisoned at the Ramla Prison (yes, the same Ramla Prison which this week got to the headlines for other reasons). He began a hunger strike which already passed the 200 days’ mark, lost thirty five kilograms and  suffered severe damage to his kidneys. A few days ago he stopped drinking the vitamins and few nutritional supplements which kept him alive until now.  All this information was completely open to publication - everything except the charges against Issawi, which were contained only in “secret evidence” presented to the judge who extended his detention and of which Issawi himself was not told.

There was no problem in publishing it - but reporters and editors in Israel’s newspapers and electronic media just did not think it was of interest to their readers and listeners. Only when this weekend the deteriorating condition of Samer al Issawi precipitated a series of demonstrations across the West Bank and clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli soldiers, a few references cropped up in the media - and even then, in a very minimal way.

Had Ben Zygier been a Palestinian, still now nobody would have heard of him.

                                                    ***

So what did really happen, in this affair of which only a select few knew four days ago and which now captured the headlines in Israel and Australia and around the world?

How it started is well known: a young Jew raised in a distinguished Melbourne family, taking his Zionism seriously makes Aliya and goes to live in Israel and getting married here; entering the country’s spy service, Mossad, and taking on a series of mysterious tasks, and certainly not giving up his Australian citizenship. Much of his value to the Mossad consisted of his ability to carry (or lend to others) a genuine Australian passport, which would pass the closest scrutiny, and enter freely countries barred to carriers of an Israeli passport. And indeed, he did not cut his ties with Australia, where his family lived, and where he has gone to visit and study at university.

The middle of the story is still mostly hidden. In early 2010 unknown agents assassinated a senior Palestinian at the Emirate of Dubai. The assassins failed to disappear without a trace. Indeed, they left behind a spectacular trail – abundant photos taken by security cameras,  names in forged Australian passports, and a series of clues pointing to the State of Israel and the Mossad. But what exactly was the connection to Ben Zygier, the Australian Jew who went to Israel and made his Australian passport available for Israel’s daring espionage operations?

And the end - most of it is by now clear. A secret trial and a secret detention at a well-guarded isolation cell in the Ramla Prison and gag orders to hide every scrap of information from the public. Serious charges that could have kept him in that secret cell for very many years, and a plea bargain offered which was a bit more lenient but which also involved quite a few years in prison, a difficult choice between two harsh options. And then suicide in custody, in a cell with four surveillance cameras. If it was a suicide.

But what exactly did happen in the middle? What did he do or plan to do? Shalom Yerushalmi in Ma'ariv published what seems to be a message sent directly from within the Mossad: "Zygier, it is said, was holding a smoking gun. Had he not been stopped, he would have caused great damage. No one  in the Mossad wanted him to kill himself in prison, but after he hanged himself none of them went into mourning" . And on TV the veteran Ron Ben-Yishai pointed an accusing finger at the Australian security service: "They are the ones who got  Zygier into trouble". How, exactly?

A hypothesis, not based on any first hand information: At some time in late January or early February 2010, the security services of Australia turned to Zygier, an Australian citizen who traveled a lot with an Australian passport, and demanded that he tell them what he knew about the use which the State of Israel made of Australian passports, in ways which were liable to damage the national interests of Australia.  Australian tourists and business people arriving in various countries were increasingly suspected of being Israeli spies.

If this is what happened, Ben Zygier could not have gotten out of it well, do what he would do. Had he provided the information, he could have come to be considered under the laws of the State of Israel a traitor failing in his loyalty to Israel. Had he refused to provide it, he might have been considered under the laws of Australia a traitor failing in his loyalty to Australia. In short - the nightmare of Jews in Australia, as in the U.S. and many other countries – the charge of "double loyalty."

Did Israel have the moral right to place an Australian Jew is such an impossible situation? Did Israel, thirty years ago, have the moral right to appeal to an American Jew named Jonathan Pollard and convince him that as a Jew he owed to Israel a loyalty surpassing that he owed to the United States?

How many Jews in how many countries have paid a direct or indirect price for the acts and policies of Israel?

In July 1994 an explosive charge exploded in the Jewish community building at Buenos Aires, capital of Argentina, and eighty-five people got killed. Although not definitely solved, this is considered to have been an act of revenge for Israel's assassination of Hezbollah leader Abbas Musawi. The Argentinian Jews, certainly not sharing in Israel’s wars in South Lebanon, were selected as the available targets for revenge against the "Jewish State".

This affair continues to resound in Argentine's politics and comes up again and again. A few weeks ago the Argentine government chose to initiate an international investigation of the bombing involving also the Iranian government – against which the Israeli government lodged a strong protest with the Argentinians. The Argentinian Foreign Minister Hector Timerman – who, perhaps not coincidentally, is himself Jewish – summoned the Ambassador of Israel to lodge a protest at the Israeli protest and the Israeli government’s interference in the way that the government of Argentine chose to deal with the murder of Argentinian citizens at the heart of the capital of Argentine.

As reported at the time, "The Argentinian Foreign Minister was so upset that he almost hardly gave the Israeli Ambassador a chance to utter a word, cut her off  again and again: ‘Israel has no right to ask for explanations, we are a sovereign state’ said Timerman to Ambassador Shavit. 'Israel doesn’t represent or speak for all Jews. Those Jews who wanted Israel to represent them went to Israel and became Israeli citizens. Jews who live in Argentine are Argentinian  citizens. The bombing was against Argentine and Israel's desire to be involved in the matter only gives ammunition to anti-Semites who accuse Jews of double loyalty’”.

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In 1917 the British government issued the Balfour Declaration, promising  to view with favour “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”. In the prolonged deliberations held by the British cabinet before this declaration was issued, Edwin Montagu  - the only Jewish minister in the British government at the time – expressed his reservations and strong opposition to the planned declaration. "...I assume that it means that Mahommedans and Christians are to make way for the Jews and that the Jews should be put in all positions of preference and should be peculiarly associated with Palestine in the same way that England is with the English or France with the French, that Turks and other Mahommedans in Palestine will be regarded as foreigners, just in the same way as Jews will hereafter be treated as foreigners in every country but Palestine”. He expressed his concerned that a "dual loyalty" would be created among the Jews of the world - loyalty to the governments in their countries of residence vs. loyalty to their national home in Israel - and it would finally give anti-Semites a pretext to undermine the position  of the Jews in Britain and other countries and expel them, also against their will,  to their "National Home".

To appease Lord Montagu and other opponents, there were added to the text of the Balfour Declaration as finally issued a clear reservation. Establishment of the "National Home" was on condition of "it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country”

Ninety-six years later, the National Home has become a fact, and established the most powerful army in the Middle East as well as an intelligence service spreading a worldwide net. In light of this experience, it would be very difficult to argue that what was "clearly understood" in 1917 had been indeed complied with, or that there was no bases to the apprehensions of Lord Edwin Montagu.

Night life in the only democracy in the Middle East

It happens every night, summer and winter, on weekdays and Saturdays and also during the Jewish holidays. A quiet street in a town or village or refugee camp somewhere on the West Bank. Suddenly, the calm of the late night hour is disturbed by the arrival of a large force of Israeli soldiers. They surround a house which was marked out in advance.  Agents of the Shabak Security Service go in and after a few minutes they come out with  the tenant handcuffed and blindfolded. They enter an armored car and drive away quickly.

Sometimes the detainee's neighbors manage to wake up in time and go out into the street and try to block the soldiers' way. The soldiers sent on such missions are briefed and trained in advance for such contingencies, and they immediately open up with tear gas - sometimes with live ammunition as well – make their way through the crowd, and rush to get the fresh detainee directly to interrogation under "moderate physical pressure" at a basement somewhere.

That is repeated every night, sometimes at five homes in five different locations, sometimes in ten, sometimes more. The Oslo Accords established a division of the West Bank into three zones: "C" is under full Israeli control, "B" under partial control of the Palestinian Authority, and "A" under its full control. At least, in the agreements signed once upon a time by the Government of Israel and never officially repealed it is written "Full control by the Palestinian Authority." So, it is written. The Shabak agents and the soldiers accompanying and guarding them take little notice. They carry out detentions at any location they choose – sometimes also in the heart of Ramallah, the city which is supposed to be the capital of the Palestinian Authority, sometimes just around the corner from the government compound of Mahmoud Abbas and his ministers.

Usually, such arrests do not get published in the Israel media. To keep track of them, one needs to follow the Palestinian news websites, where there appears every morning an  accurate tally of the places where the soldiers arrived on the previous night and the number of Palestinians kidnapped there (Palestinians sites do not use in this context the verb "arrest"...)

http://www.imemc.org/
http://www.maannews.net/eng/Default.aspx

This week there was an exception. For once, the nightly detentions of Palestinians got published in the Israeli media (though they did not make the headlines). On Tuesday morning the army reported "a widespread arrest operation against wanted Palestinians", carried out as part of what the Shabak and IDF call "The Lawn Mowing Policy". As published, "25 wanted Palestinians were arrested, mostly Hamas activists." Why exactly were they arrested? Why were they wanted? What are they accused of? As usual, army and security do not provide information. These people are ‘wanted’, and that is that. It was only stated that the decision to make the arrests at this time stems from "concern at Hamas's efforts to rebuild infrastructure in the West Bank, in the aftermath of Operation Cloud Pillar in the Gaza Strip".

What infrastructure? To judge by the identity of the detainees – who were involved in open political activity and in charity organizations - it does not seem to be an attempt to organize armed activity. Rather, they appear to have embarked on resuming the activities of Hamas as a political party, towards a possible reconciliation between the Palestinian factions and perhaps also new elections for the Palestinian Legislature. In recent months we have heard, for the first time in quite a long while, of open activity by Fatah in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and a mass rally held by its supporters in downtown Gaza.  Reciprocally, at the same time there are manifestations of political activity by the Hamas movement in the cities and villages of the West Bank, rallies and demonstrations and a growing presence in the streets. It seems that someone here in Israel does not care for this celebration of Palestinian democracy.

Among others, those arrested on the "Lawn Mowing Night" include three Members of the Palestinian Legislative Council,. As in the Israeli Knesset and most other parliaments around the world, Palestinian parliamentarians have parliamentary immunity - but the IDF and Shabak care little about that. Many members of the Palestinian Legislative Council, entrusted with representing their constituents at the elections held in 2006, have spent most of their term behind bars in Israeli prisons. This week, three more detained parliamentarians were added: Hatem Qafisha in Hebron, Mohammed al-Tal in Dhahiriyya, and Ahmed Attoun in al-Bireh. In all,  fifteen of the Legislative Council's  eighty-eight members are currently in detention.

http://maannews.net/ENG/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=561892
http://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/2013/02/05/ufree-network-condemns-israeli-arrests-of-palestinian-mps/
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4340655,00.html

I met Ahmed Attoun a few years ago, at the East Jerusalem home of Muhammad Abu-Tir, who along with Attoun got elected in the Palestinian elections of 2006. At that meeting, the two Parliamentarians told us that "Yasser Arafat had signed all the papers with Israel, but did not get anything in return",  and added "we will only talk with Israel when it becomes clear that the Israeli government means to hold serious negotiations, negotiations  which will bear results within a short time." They then declared that Hamas is ready to stop all violent acts, in a truce to last twenty to thirty years - provided that for its own part, Israel also stops all acts of violence.

With the consent of the two of them, we sent immediately after the meeting an urgent  letter to then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, stating that in our humble opinion what they said may serve as a basis for starting  negotiations. A short time later Attoun and Abu-Tir were arrested, as were many other members of the Palestinian Legislative Council, and since then they are constantly going in and out of the prisons and detention facilities of the State of Israel.

On Tuesday morning this week – the same morning when Attoun, Qafisha and  al-Tal had their first breakfast in jail – newly elected members of the Israeli Parliament, the Knesset, gathered for festive inauguration following the recent Israeli elections. A celebration of democracy, at the only democratic state in the Middle East. Israel's President Shimon Peres arrived and was greeted with trumpets. One by one, dozens of new Members affirmed their oath of office in front of their admiring family members. They talked about the complicated negotiations to form a new government coalition and gossiped a bit the scandalous new dress of the Prime Minister's wife, and finally went blithely to their homes.

None of the Members of our Knesset had the slightest apprehension that in the wee hours of the night their homes might be surrounded by the Palestinian Security Forces, whose agents would rush in and lead them handcuffed and blindfolded to detention and interrogation. What a crazy idea!